Leprechauns, Fairies and other little people

[bill1953]

Look up the term "otherkin" and you'll find people who believe themselves to be decended from various mythological creatures. Most of them are full of it, but some do have actual physical abnormalities that make you wonder. Pointed ears, extra bones, that sort of thing.

I have a friend who swears there's a family of gnomes in their house. If they drop something shiny, they sometimes see a tiny hand reaching out to snatch it away.

I'm told that it wasn't too long ago in some places that it was fashionable to claim elven ancestry.

Just googled it! There's even a support line for otherkins!

[Odsox]

There is a Fairy Fort next to my house which was a new build. We had to get an archaeological inspection and report before work could commence.

Yep we've got one of those too, the side of it is our boundary and we had to get an archaeological inspection too ... which entailed two people sitting drinking tea watching us while we dug a trench for the footings.
The engineer who inspected the house before we bought it wouldn't go near it and the farmerette who owns the land won't cut down any hawthorn trees in the hedge for reasons unknown (to me) but is very grateful if I cut them down to size.

[bill1953]

My grandfather wouldn't allow anyone near one especially in the dark because you wouldn't come back alive unless you were dead first. But there was far equally other dangerous things to be found at night. My father remembers his Uncle Pats calling one night about 1924 to have a drink with my grandfather. Uncle Pats left the cottage but came back minutes later banging on the door saying he had been chased by the devil. It was well known that the devil disguised as a huge black hound haunted part of the road between Lisquinlan and Ballymacoda so my grandfather took a blackthorne stick that he kept for the very purpose and escorted Uncle Pats home. A blackthorne stick is the only viable protection against this sort of problem.

http://www.irelandseye.com/leprechaun/webcam.htm

[demi]

Has anyone ever seen any little people? Seriously, I do not see why they can't exist. If you can have a silverback gorilla weighing up to 600lbs and marmoset weighing ounces , why can't our own species have diversity in size? I am told that in ancient times there was a horse the size of a rabbit and in South America they have a breed of horse the size of a dog today. So why can't there be little people? In the early 1950's my mother went to view a dead leprechaun in Dublin where we lived. I have found an account on the Leprechaun Museum web site which must be the same same incident as it's not often that dead leprechauns are found.

"Leprechauns are also said to make full use of the park and its woodlands. In 1952 a local couple ( Kathleen and Mary Maguire) claimed that they had found a little dead fairy man underneath a mushroom in the Phoenix Park. They bottled the deceased homunculus and charged threepence-a-look at a nearby funfair, collecting £35 in seven weeks (a significant amount in those days). One day, however, 'four country lads' liberated the bottle and occupant never seen to be seen again."

The only difference was my mother said she was charged sixpence not threepence. She was a nurse and was convinced that what she saw was human like tissue. Although the official version was that a group of young men, possibly students from Trinity College took the bottle away, it was also widely believed that leprechauns had entered the house at night and retrieved their dead comrade. In Cork years ago, I observed a fleeting image of something run into the undergrowth near furze bush which did not seems to be an animal.

of course little people exist today, they have their own TV show, havent you seen it??
theres little people conventions where they all go to meet each other and often get married and have little kids.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Look up the term "otherkin" and you'll find people who believe themselves to be decended from various mythological creatures. Most of them are full of it, but some do have actual physical abnormalities that make you wonder. Pointed ears, extra bones, that sort of thing.

I have a friend who swears there's a family of gnomes in their house. If they drop something shiny, they sometimes see a tiny hand reaching out to snatch it away.

I'm told that it wasn't too long ago in some places that it was fashionable to claim elven ancestry.

Just googled it! There's even a support line for otherkins!

Marvellous! I've got three nipples. I always put it down to common-or-garden physical deformity that I could sometimes use to break the ice at parties, but if it could get me into a club.....

[Alice Abbott]

My mother-in-law (from Waterford) absolutely believes in all these things. Sometimes she almost convinces me too...

[bill1953]

My mother-in-law (from Waterford) absolutely believes in all these things. Sometimes she almost convinces me too...

I look at it this way, when the first reports about gorillas reached civillisation most people denied such a creature could exist. It has taken a long time for giant squids to be taken seriously. My father remembered his family hearing a banshee the night his mother lay dying when he was a young boy. My mother, eldest daughter and myself heard one the night he died.I have had very definite experiences of seeing ghosts. Leprechauns, fairies etc, no one has ever presented a good argument for why they could not exist.

[gregorach]

Leprechauns, fairies etc, no one has ever presented a good argument for why they could not exist.

Oh, go on then... Although I can't help but feel I'm having my chain yanked.

It's not that I don't think they could exist, it's just that I haven't seen anything to convince me that they actually do exist. Where are they? Why don't they show up in the archaeological record? Why has nobody ever documented a properly verifiable specimen, either alive or dead?

Also, I'm very curious as to how they're supposed to fit into the local ecology. What do they eat? How do they dispose of their wastes, and their dead? They're always depicted as clothed, so where do they grow the fibre crops? How is their economy structured? And so on...

[big brew ejit]

Leprechauns, fairies etc, no one has ever presented a good argument for why they could not exist.

Oh, go on then... Although I can't help but feel I'm having my chain yanked.

It's not that I don't think they could exist, it's just that I haven't seen anything to convince me that they actually do exist. Where are they? Why don't they show up in the archaeological record? Why has nobody ever documented a properly verifiable specimen, either alive or dead?

Also, I'm very curious as to how they're supposed to fit into the local ecology. What do they eat? How do they dispose of their wastes, and their dead? They're always depicted as clothed, so where do they grow the fibre crops? How is their economy structured? And so on...

Have you not seen any of the Tinker Bell cartoons ? They explain everything

Bill you must be the resident shanachie with those stories, keep them coming.

[sleepyowl]

I wrote about this on my blog http://robstacey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02 ... place.html It is only my opinion however I do not claim it as the solid universal truth

[bill1953]

Leprechauns, fairies etc, no one has ever presented a good argument for why they could not exist.

Oh, go on then... Although I can't help but feel I'm having my chain yanked.

It's not that I don't think they could exist, it's just that I haven't seen anything to convince me that they actually do exist. Where are they? Why don't they show up in the archaeological record? Why has nobody ever documented a properly verifiable specimen, either alive or dead?

Also, I'm very curious as to how they're supposed to fit into the local ecology. What do they eat? How do they dispose of their wastes, and their dead? They're always depicted as clothed, so where do they grow the fibre crops? How is their economy structured? And so on...

Dunc there is no yanking of chains here but maybe clanking of chains. What do they eat? Well same as us I would imagine, but in lesser quantities. A blackberry would be a great feast. A dead mouse would be a hog roast. Dispose of the waste? Probably put it in our bins. Dispose of the dead? You don't need a big hole for a leprechaun. Clothes ? Magic spinning wheels. Economy structure? Obviously better than ours. It's well known in Ireland that Carroll's gift shops are owned by leprechauns.

[bill1953]

Leprechauns, fairies etc, no one has ever presented a good argument for why they could not exist.

Oh, go on then... Although I can't help but feel I'm having my chain yanked.

It's not that I don't think they could exist, it's just that I haven't seen anything to convince me that they actually do exist. Where are they? Why don't they show up in the archaeological record? Why has nobody ever documented a properly verifiable specimen, either alive or dead?

Also, I'm very curious as to how they're supposed to fit into the local ecology. What do they eat? How do they dispose of their wastes, and their dead? They're always depicted as clothed, so where do they grow the fibre crops? How is their economy structured? And so on...

Have you not seen any of the Tinker Bell cartoons ? They explain everything


Bill you must be the resident shanachie with those stories, keep them coming.

It's the God's honest truth so it is.

[bill1953]

I wrote about this on my blog http://robstacey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02 ... place.html It is only my opinion however I do not claim it as the solid universal truth

Great post! When my eldest daughter was about 14 she was very into goth. She asked me to take her to an ancient church with old tombs one evening at twilight. She had the long black hair, pale skin, black make up, and black dress. II was waiting in the doorway for her as she roamed about the tombstones as goths do. Some other kids walked past and a young girl left the group an wandered off into the gravestones and squatted down in the long grass. She didn't notice me or my daughter who was heading straight towards her. Suddenly I heard a scream and seen the girl running away pulling her pants up. My daughter had just walked right to where she was. Wonder if she still tells the story of the 'vampire'!

[sleepyowl]

Thanks Bill

[dave45]

in answer to the "why not?" question, isn't it to do with Reynold's numbers? or am I thinking of smth else?.. its why you can't get six-foot wasps and spiders as in horror movies